


Always with the Dramatic Exit—The Day After Nate Left Job

by crayonbreakygal



Series: The After Nate Left Jobs [4]
Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7020517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As she watched him down his drink, she wondered when she’d have to save him, again.  Takes place between season two and three, and during and after The Jailhouse Job, season three</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always with the Dramatic Exit—The Day After Nate Left Job

Takes place between season two and three, and during and after The Jailhouse Job, season three

Always with the Dramatic Exit—The Day After Nate Left Job

His chest hurt.  His arm hurt where the needle stuck out, pumping drugs into his system.  His head hurt, possibly because of all the drugs that were being pumped through his system in addition to losing a lot of blood and being dehydrated.  Wouldn’t the IV take care of that?

Still, his chest hurt, along with his side, which was where he was shot in the first place.  It hurt to move, but he had to.  Staying in one place on the bed was excruciating. 

How long had it been?  Two days, three.  Who knew?  No one would tell him.  As he drifted off to sleep again, he thought he smelled Sophie’s perfume.  Maybe he was dreaming it.  Maybe one of the nurses also used something similar.  Only Sophie smelled that way though. That he was sure.  He sighed as sleep overtook him yet again.  He’d heal, then figure out how in hell to get out of Sterling’s clutches.  Or maybe jail.  Sure, jail would be fine.

 

Sophie figured that she’d have a few moments before someone would catch her.  She had to see for herself that Nate was OK.  The only way in though was through the air ducts.  That was Parker’s specialty, not hers.  She’d have to rely on Parker’s expertise to get her in and out.  Looking down on Nate, Parker quietly punched through the screen, lowering herself down onto the floor.  Sophie wasn’t as graceful as Parker, but made it down unscathed. 

He was pale, way too pale for even his Irish skin.  His curls were a tangled mess.  His hospital gown was twisted around him, like he’d been attempting to move although he was hooked up to too many monitors.  Smoothing down the blanket around his legs, she pulled it up so he wouldn’t catch a chill.  Her eyes memorized everything about him: his dark hair that was greying around the temples, his chapped lips that she had kissed not four days prior, and his hands, still in his forced rest.  His hands were never still when he was awake.  That should have clued her in on that boat that something was terribly wrong.  He didn’t reach out and grab her like she had expected.

Brushing his hair back off his face, her fingers ghosted over his cheeks and then his lips, hoping against hope that one day they’d be able to share another kiss, this one not one of desperation but one of future kisses and possibly much more.

Bending down, she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead, knowing that they only had mere moments to spend with him.  Parker poked her to hurry.  She’d gotten what she’d come for.  Seeing Nate in the flesh had satisfied her.  He would get better, they’d figure out how to break him out and he’d come back to her.

“Time to go,” Parker whispered to her.

Hand moving down to his cheek, one last touch was all she needed.  Only his hand came up and encircled her wrist tightly, a lifeline from him to her.

“Darling, we’ll be back,” she whispered in his ear.

The hold he had on her lessened until his hand dropped to his side.  Sophie couldn’t tell whether he was actually awake or it was just his reaction to having her in the same room.

Parker quickly got them out of the room before they were discovered.  It didn’t take them long to make it back to Hardison’s van and back to Nate’s place.  Sophie sighed as Eliot opened the door.  Parker immediately went to pick up her bunny, now with one of Nate’s hats on top of its head, too big of course.  Parker didn’t seem to care.

“That was close,” Hardison announced.  “Sterling came in not two minutes later.”

“Do you think he knew?” Sophie asked.

“Not that I can tell.”

“Good.”

Over the next few weeks, they all watched over Nate, but there were no more excursions.  Sterling set up Nate’s testimony as quickly as he could so after he could put Nate in jail.  He’d honor what he’d set up with Sterling.  Sophie was still angry with what he had pulled.  She’d let him know it as soon as she was allowed to visit.

Months later, he was finally taken to the private prison where Sterling had set him up.  The team still didn’t understand under what charges, except for possibly kidnapping the mayor, although Culpepper was also serving a sentence for helping Kadjic.  That could not be ignored by the authorities, even though he turned witness against Kadjic in the end.  Kadjic was sent to a much tighter, higher security prison than Nate was.  Sophie would have killed Sterling herself if he had placed Nate anywhere near that man.

She planned her first visit carefully, making sure that Sterling had exited the country before she did.  Dressing the part of angry girlfriend, she pulled off all the stops she could muster.  The red dress, the high heels, the lipstick.  It was the ultimate con she was going to pull.  It was all for Nate and no one else.  She’d make him miserable like he’d made her miserable all the months prior.

As she walked down the corridor to where she’d finally be able to talk to him face to face, all eyes were turned to her.  That damn plexiglass in front of them wouldn’t deter her from getting what she wanted.  His eyes widened as he watched her take a seat.

“And who am I meeting today?” was his first comment.  Not how are you, or how the team was.  Bastard.

“Serve you right that Annie would come instead of me.”

“You’re scarier.”

“Damn straight I am.”

He smiled at her.  The weight he’d lost made her concerned for him, but she definitely didn’t want to show that emotion.  She wanted him to realize that she was pissed with him.

“How are you?”

“Oh, finally you ask.  Not that you couldn’t tell right now.”

“I’m just glad there’s something between us right now.”

“How’s the cheek?”

He smirked her way.  “Couldn’t be better.”

Sophie gritted her teeth at his answer.

“How’s the gunshot wound?”

“Sore.”

She smirked back.

They kept that up for a few more minutes until it was time for her to leave.  Nate couldn’t help but keep smiling at her as she chastised him.  Nothing she said could get under his skin.  That would not do in her book.

“It’s time for me to go.”

“Sophie.”

Oh that voice.  It always melted Sophie into a puddle of goo.  What she wouldn’t give to have him whisper it while he was close to her.

“Nathan Ford, I…”

The phone shut down just as she started to tell him what she really felt.  Placing her hand against the plexiglass, he mimicked what she was doing, spreading his fingers like he could touch her through it.  Blowing him a kiss, she removed the hand and made her way out, looking back over her shoulder.  The color had returned to his cheeks, the tips of his ears now red as he watched her walk away slowly. The red dress had done its job. 

Over the next few months, Sophie visited him as often as she could, bringing him news of what they were doing.  He refused several times to break him out.  It was only after finding an actual client in prison and finally breaking out that Sophie was able to confront Nate.  Six months.  Six long months of not having him by her side.

Once he returned to her, it took mere minutes to get involved in something that might be way in over their heads.  She didn’t care.  Their plan had worked.  He was free, except for the whiskey in his hand and the Italian hot on his heels to bring down a very bad man.  

He was hers, again.  As she watched him down his drink, she wondered when she’d have to save him, again.  It could get tiresome with anyone else.  Never with him.  He’d make it interesting.  Sophie just needed to make sure he didn’t blow everything, like he did with Sterling.

Parker proceeded to sniff him a bit, but turned to leave with her bunny, wrapped in a shirt and a hat.  Nate looked at Parker, pointed and frowned.  Sophie wasn’t going to stop the woman.  Nate had enough hats to last a lifetime.  And he complained about her shoe collection?

Hardison smiled Nate’s way, while Eliot just rolled his eyes at Parker.  All three left with goodbyes, with Eliot scowling Nate’s way.

“Acts like I want to get in trouble.”

Sophie laughed a bit at that.  “He has a point.”

“Thanks.”

Did he just thank her? She did a double-take.

“As well you should be thankful.”

Nate sighed her way, downing the drink she handed back to him after asking him how his drinking was going.

“Are we going to talk about…”

She shut up his line of questioning with a finger to his lips.  Moving closer to him, she looked up into his eyes.  So much passed between the two of them without talking.  How much she missed him, how much he really missed her.  The fact that she was back, probably for good.  That he needed to behave, but she knew that would be rather difficult, especially since even though he was sober for six months, he definitely wasn’t going to keep that up.  They were at a standstill.  As always.

Sliding her finger over to his jaw, she watched as he flinched at the contact.  She was certain he hadn’t had much, if any, physical contact from anyone.  Her wandering fingers traced his jaw, moving to his temples and back to his nose and then ending on his lips.

“Sophie,” he whispered as her hands dropped to her sides.

“That’s not my real name,” she whispered back, her face mere inches from his.

Breathing in deeply, even though he’d been in prison for the last six months, he still smelled the same. 

Tiptoeing, she placed a small kiss on the side of his mouth.  Instead of letting her leave, which was what she had intended to do after the others did, he reached for her and pulled her to him.  Not to kiss her senseless like he did the last time, but to bury his head in her neck, his hands around her, holding her tight. 

 

Later, after Sophie made her exit, Nate wandered around the apartment, looking at what Hardison had done to his place, yet again.  He wasn’t sure he liked it, but he was gone for six months.  That, to Hardison, was license to change things the way he liked.  Making his way upstairs, he noticed that the bed had been made.  Of course it had.  It’d been six months.

He breathed in when he realized though that it all smelled like Sophie.  Had she stayed here when he was in prison?  She must have.  How else would everything smell like her?  She was trying to kill him, ever so slowly.  Falling down on the bed, he rolled until he was comfortable.  He was home, Sophie didn’t leave.  Now he’d have to figure out how to make it up to her.


End file.
